


Always in my heart

by freyjawriter24



Category: Tarzan - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Gen, poc Tarzan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyjawriter24/pseuds/freyjawriter24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I saw an excellent post on tumblr a little while ago, suggesting Tarzan as a perfect candidate for a lesbian remake. So, I thought I'd oblige, at least in fic form. Here's my attempt - film makers, I present to you the basis for the next Tarzan reboot.</p><p>Slow burn, lesbian romance between a female Tarzan and Jane Porter. Will be updated as often as I can.</p><p>(Link to inspiration post: http://gorejock.tumblr.com/post/141281280033/cutefrosting-gorejock-tarzan-is-one-of-the)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The man hurried through the overgrown jungle floor, hardly daring to breathe, lungs bursting from the strain. _Run, run, get away, hide, stay quiet, lead it away…_

He couldn’t let whatever was chasing him find her. He got himself lost among uncharted trees, caring less about escaping himself than helping her survive. _Maybe they’ll still come back for us. They’ll find her, she’ll be safe. She’ll live. She’ll be fine. If only I can lead it away…_

The adrenaline pumping, he suddenly stopped and jumped behind a large tree. Struggling to control his breathing, he crouched and strained his ears, listening for the sound of the creature pursuing him. Nothing. Silence. Only the birds in the trees and the sounds of the jungle.

This did not reassure him. These animals knew this territory – there was no way it had lost him. Unsettled, he calculated his options. Number 1: continue running, away. Number 2: climb a tree. Number 3: wait a while, and if everything seems fine, head back.

He hesitated. What was following him? Was it faster than a human? Could it climb trees? Was he better off here? He wondered whether it would get bored if it did not find him, or whether it would track him down no matter what. If it was the latter…

He couldn’t go back. Not yet, anyway. Not tonight. She’d have to survive alone for one night. She was fed and sleeping, she’d be fine. _As long as she doesn’t wake up…_  
A twig snapped in the undergrowth. He looked up sharply. A pair of eyes stared back.

Far away, a baby slept on, hidden and safe. She did not know she would never see her father again.

***

Well over a decade later, another figure was sprinting through the trees. The five dark shapes pursuing were gaining ground. _Come on, keep going, run, run, run!_

Then, all of a sudden, the figure in front skidded to a halt, jumped in the air, and whooped loudly. The five other shapes barrelled after, and all six of them collapsed into a laughing, hooting heap on the forest floor.

“I won!”

“Only because we gave you a head start!”

The winner of the race grabbed the other speaker by the shoulder and put her in a jokey headlock. They fought for a moment, the other four egging them on. Then they broke apart, grinned at each other, and started laughing again.

“Come on, race you back to the nests!”

And then they were off again – five gorillas, and one human girl.

The human’s name was Tarzan. Not that she knew that yet; her name had yet to be translated into a word understandable and legible to English-speaking humans. To Tarzan and her friends, her name was a specific two-syllable grunt, similar to yet distinct from the names of each other member of the group. With regards to being human, she didn’t exactly know that, either. All she knew was she was different – not a gorilla, but with no alternative word to call herself by instead.

She didn’t mind, though. And since the others didn’t mind either, it wasn’t a problem. She was just Tarzan; and that was enough.

***

Three and a half thousand miles away, another girl was sat enjoying the wilderness, perched in a tree near her home. The two didn’t appear much alike, having different backgrounds and upbringings, but they were similar in many ways.

This girl’s name was Jane. She didn’t have many human companions either. Her friends were found in storybooks, and in the biographies of famous scientists, and in the animal specimens in her father’s place of work. She loved stories, and science, and nature.

She was the daughter of a professor of science, who specialised in cataloguing and analysing new species, and a woman who would now be described as a feminist. Jane had fond memories of her mother, who had died several years ago when Jane had just turned 6, but she continued to talk to and educate Jane even now through a collection of books she had left to her daughter in her will, including the likes of _The Tale of Joan of Arc_ , _Pride and Prejudice_ by Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_.

Jane loved reading, at least in part due to the influence of her mother, and would devour any literature she could get her hands on, both fiction and non-fiction. Unfortunately, this was seen as somewhat unbecoming of a young girl, as she did not merely read that small range of literature deemed ‘appropriate for her sex and age’, but all kinds of writings in any genre. As a result, she was often told off by stern ladies she didn’t know for the books she held in her hands, and was often taunted by other children for preferring the fictional, factual and historical worlds she found in those pages to the world in front of her.

However, this was nothing in comparison to the criticism she received later, for expressing her interest in her father’s line of work, and wanting to follow him into a field of scientific study. But for now, she was young, settled in a tree, reading, while the other children played far away, ignoring her.

She was never lonely – she always had things to do, people to meet, books to read. The only thing was that she had no one her own age to talk to, only her father’s colleagues and assistants. She knew she was different, though she could never completely put her finger on why the other children didn’t like her. But she was not unhappy, so she didn’t mind too much. She was Jane, wholly and authentically herself, and that was enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Tarzan’s life was fairly idyllic. Her days as a teenager were spent playing, exploring, foraging, and otherwise doing whatever she wanted. She had fun, and that was the only thing she ever really wanted out of life.

“Come on, Tarzan!” Terk was yelling.

Tarzan grabbed a branch slightly below her, and swung down one-handed to another underneath that, continuing the motion until she was able to jump to the bottom of the tree, where Terk was standing.

“Mango?” Tarzan offered her friend, holding out one of the armful of fruits she had just picked. Terk grinned and grabbed it, taking a large bite and making appreciative noises as the juice dribbled from her mouth.

The other four gorillas about their age came bounding around the corner, and seeing Tarzan’s haul, begged her for some of the fruit. In return, Tarzan threw each of them a mango, just high enough that they had to jump slightly to reach it. Then she settled down with her own fruit, and the six of them sat and ate for a while.

As soon as the food was eaten, they were up again, chasing each other through the trees to the stream, where they washed and drank and splashed each other and laughed.

Once they’d tired of messing about in the water, the six of them got out and sat on the bank, cleaning each other’s fur of any insects that had survived the dousing. The boys ended up sat on the opposite bank to Terk and Tarzan.

“Do you get the feeling they’re looking at me funny?” Terk suddenly asked.

Tarzan stopped raking through her best friend’s fur and glanced over at the gorillas on the other side of the shallow stream. Two of them were foraging through another’s fur, but the fourth was stood on all fours, alternating between laughing with his friends and sneaking looks at Terk.

Tarzan shrugged.

“Maybe,” she allowed. “But I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Terk seemed unsure.

“I know it’s normal and everything, but… I dunno, I’m just not sure I ever want kids or anything. My mum keeps saying I’ll change my mind, or I’m just not ready yet, but… I don’t like how they look at me.”

Tarzan moved to sit down in front of Terk.

“My mum doesn’t think I’ll ever have kids. I don’t think you have to, if you don’t want to.”

“Really?”

“Sure. I mean, it might just be because I’m different, but I don’t think you have to do anything you don’t want to. Maybe your mum’s right, and you’ll change your mind, but I don’t suppose anyone will mind if you don’t. We’ve got plenty of infants to take care of as it is around here.”

Terk looked slightly reassured. She was the youngest of their little group, although the gorillas never measured exactly how old they were, and she had always enjoyed playing as if she was ‘one of the boys’.

Tarzan sneaked a glance over her shoulder. The fourth male had sat down now, and was grooming the fur of one of his friends. Tarzan had never really been interested in what Terk was talking about either, and although she didn’t mind helping look after the children, her experiences watching some of the other gorillas give birth hadn’t made her particularly enthusiastic about having her own.

She looked back, and Terk caught her expression.

“Nah, not yet.”

The two girls smiled, then Terk grabbed Tarzan’s head and started rifling through her long, thick locks of hair, searching for anything living there. Tarzan smiled through the mop covering her face – this was Terk’s way of saying thank you.

“Ugh, Tarzan, you really need to sort this mess out! It’s getting hard to see anything amongst all this.”

“Hey!” the human girl said, and jokingly pushed Terk over onto her back. They had a small wrestling match, and the boys crossed over the river to watch. When they broke apart, they all started heading back to the nests together, pushing each other and joking around, all talk of relationships and children forgotten.

***

As she grew up, more of this sort of thing became common for Tarzan. The adult gorillas kept making references about her and Terk in relation to the boys – although Tarzan noticed this only ever seemed to happen when they were together, and never only to Tarzan on her own. She brushed it off, and forgot about it. What more was there to consider?

When she was in her mid-teens, Kala found some strange material out on the edge of the jungle that she gave to Tarzan to wrap around her chest. Tarzan never asked where her mother had found the fabric, but she was grateful to have a way to make herself feel more comfortable when she was running and climbing.

A little later, Kala gave her some more of the material to wear hanging down from around her waist, to hide the fact that often Tarzan’s cycle was noticeably heavier than Terk’s, or any of the other female gorillas. It was uncomfortable, but Tarzan managed. Kala watched, concerned, as any mother would be, but she said nothing.

***

Jane had her own boy problems.

Although she lived in a world where everyone around her was at least the same species, so in theory could understand what she was going through better, she was not allowed the freedom that Tarzan had. She was poked and prodded into shape every day by the maids that tightened her corsets, the aunts that chose her clothes, the tutors who taught her piano and singing and sewing alongside Latin and French.

The blood was a taboo subject. The maid washed it off the sheets and her undergarments. Her aunts never mentioned it. The other girls, children of the adults that came to the house, never spoke of it, or the pain it caused. Jane wondered whether the boys even knew about it. She learned to hide her discomfort, to smile when she felt like groaning, to rest her hands delicately in her lap and use her skirts to hide the hand that massaged her stomach.

As she grew into adolescence, her father was convinced by their relatives to begin the search for an ‘appropriate match’. Jane knew what this meant, of course – she read books, didn’t she? – but she wasn’t sure she wanted one of her own. Of course, that opinion was one she was not supposed to express – _every girl must have a husband. Would you rather end up an old spinster?_ Jane usually declined to answer that question, since the answer was yes, and she knew it would not be well received, though she also didn’t particularly want to lie either. They always took her sullen silence to mean no. And so the search for suitors went on.

***

An adolescent girl was not supposed to climb trees and run away into nature. Jane occasionally ignored this. Tarzan was never informed.

“Come on, Terk, hurry up!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming, just wait!”

“Aren’t you girls meant to be doing something helpful today?” Kala asked gently.

Tarzan rocked on her knuckled and looked up guiltily at her mother.

“Well… _yeah_ , but we only need to help collect some stuff, and we can do that on the way to the waterfall, or on the way back. And we won’t be long, anyway. Please?”

Terk suddenly appeared from behind a tree.

“Ok, I’m here, I’m ready!” She stopped when she saw Tarzan staring up at Kala.

“Aren’t you letting her go? We won’t be long, I promise, only we haven’t been to the waterfall in _ages_. Please let her go, Kala.”

The older gorilla looked down at the two teenagers before her. Terk was already bigger than Tarzan, and naturally stronger, but her friend could always hold her own against the others. If they were stood upright, Tarzan would be the taller of the two just because that was the way she was built, but as it was, on all fours on the ground Terk had the edge in height. Kala wondered what these changes meant for her daughter – would she grow taller than Kerchak? Would she grow thin and weak by the time she was an adult, unable to sustain the strength necessary to survive as a gorilla? Would Kala have to protect her against other members of the group who wanted to force her out? It hadn’t been an issue so far, and Kala hoped it would stay that way. For now, she was safe. She was happy, she was having fun, the other gorillas her age accepted her, and she was contributing to the group. She would be fine.

Kala sighed.

“Ok, you can go to the waterfall.” The girls nudged each other roughly in celebration. “But make sure you don’t spend too long there, and make sure you do whatever it was that the others asked you to.”

“Thanks, mum,” Tarzan said.

“Thanks, Kala!” Terk grinned. She grabbed Tarzan’s arm, and the two of them ran off on all fours into the jungle.

Kala sighed again as she watched them vanish among the trees.

***

This girl, so at home in nature, was never supposed to ever even meet a gorilla, let alone be raised by a family of them. Her father had intended for her to live in England, and have a decent, middle-class upbringing – albeit most likely not the typical childhood of the daughter of a man of his class. But he would have made every effort to avoid the difference being starkly noticeable, would have ensured her education and inheritance, would have made sure people learned to look past first appearances and their own conceited self-importance and superiority complexes. Her father would have done anything for his daughter, would have given his whole life in devotion to her. But he already had, years too early – and now Tarzan roamed the trees of a central African jungle, not the fashionable streets of London.

The British capital was where her father had grown up, the first son of a well-off family, heir to a decent fortune, although not one that would push him into the upper classes. His career of choice took him across the Continent and beyond, eventually travelling and staying in rural Africa for a time.

It was there that he met Tarzan’s mother. This was a world in which slavery was abolished, but a separation of individuals based on skin colour was still the norm. This was a world in which those with more melanin worked as servants, and did not belong to the middle or upper classes. This was a world in which interracial marriage was frowned upon, although it was not explicitly illegal.

Tarzan’s mother did not have any wealth to her name to make the union advantageous. There was no gold, no land, no contract or treaty to be gained by the joining of hands of these two people from widely differing backgrounds. They were different nationalities, different ethnicities, different classes. And yet, as is often the way in romance stories, they fell in love anyway. They defied custom, they ignored what his family would say back home, and they stood strong, holding hands all the way.

It wasn’t long before Tarzan’s mother fell pregnant, and she decided she wanted to have her first baby, at least, in her home country, before travelling to their new life together in England. The contract for the job for which Tarzan’s father had first travelled to that region of Africa for was due to end a month or so before the baby was due, so they moved for that time to a sea port, and the couple arranged to journey back to London once the child turned one month old.

But for all their organisation, there was something that they could never truly plan for. The birth appeared to go smoothly, and the small family revelled in their first day together, hugging and smiling and kissing and laughing. But then the new mother fell ill. And did not get better.

The appointed date for the journey came and went. The illness dragged on. Tarzan grew every day, but constantly cried after her mother. Her father soothed her, and they went to see the woman they both loved as often as possible, just to make her smile.

It was complications from the birth, they said. An infection of some kind, and her body was fighting it hard. But there was nothing they could do except keep her comfortable and well-rested, and wait for the outcome. Medicine then was not medicine now.

Tarzan was barely two months old when her mother died. Her father was devastated, shutting himself up for days, leaving the baby to be tended to by nurses. But by the end of the week, he had opened the doors again, and taken Tarzan back into his arms – after all, there were more important things to cry about, like wet clothes and a craving for milk. He promised to take as good care of his daughter as possible, and make sure she grew up knowing her mother. He packed a small, sturdy box of her possessions, including a grey photograph of the happy couple on their wedding day, and left it shut, for Tarzan herself to open when she was old enough.

When Tarzan was four months old, the ship finally launched that was due to take them home.

But, once again, things did not go as planned. For reasons forgotten or lost by time – politics, or poor conditions or pay, or a clash of ideologies – the ship’s crew mutinied. Tarzan and her father were placed in a small boat, with only one oar and a few boxes of their possessions, and were set adrift in the vast Atlantic Ocean.

Presumably the crew assumed the sorry pair would die of thirst or hunger before ever reaching land, or else be swept under by a storm, or possibly be picked up by another ship. None of these things happened. Instead, the boat ran ashore on the edge of an African jungle, miles from any civilisation. And the rest, as they say, is history.

***

Jane’s background was much less exciting, but only one parent less tragic. And the parent she did have more than made up for any lack of excitement found in the story of her birth, or the books she read to fill her time.

“Jane, darling, I have some wonderful news for you. Come and sit down.”

Her father was sat behind the grand oak desk that dominated his study. Often, when he was not out working ‘in the field’, or in the laboratory with his colleagues, this was where he sat reviewing and editing his notes, compiling his lists, and preparing for future work that needed doing. This was the room Jane had first heard of a man called Darwin, this was the desk at which she had first learnt to draw. This was still where she came, sometimes, when her father was out, to sketch from memory the flowers she saw out in the fields, or the insects she’d seen trying to eat the ladies’ jam whilst they were taking afternoon tea outside. Her father didn’t mind her using the room – it was quieter than the rest of the house, and the maids rarely came in, so it was the perfect place to be able to focus on the task at hand.

Jane moved into the room and shut the door behind her, taking the slightly smaller chair on the near side of the desk; the visitor’s seat, inferior to her father’s larger, more throne-like chair, though really just as comfortable.

“What is it, father?”

“Do you remember what I told you, a little while ago now, about some voyages to Africa that some people up in London were taking?”

“Yes, father,” she nodded. “What about them?”

“Well, you see, I had been hoping for a while that one of these voyages would have a place for a scientist on board, to study the local flora and fauna, and that perhaps they might be able to bring back some information that would be useful to my work. And I was saying as much to one of the Lords who was involved in organising the next journey, and he said to me ‘I’ll see what I can do’. Naturally I though little of it since, because of course he has many more pressing matters to attend to, but he sent me a letter a week ago to tell me that not only were they interested in bringing a scientist along, but in fact those who had already made the journey were intensely interested in there being a whole voyage specifically so that a small number of botanists and biologists and the like could study the African wildlife for the benefit of Crown and Empire! And I was cordially invited to arrange the selection of those scientists, and oversee the process of studying the wildlife there, on the ground in Africa!” Jane’s father looked positively elated at the news, his social restraint failing slightly at points where he moved his hands to highlight an exclamation. There was no one else in the room – societal expectations didn’t matter here.

“Daddy, that’s wonderful!” Jane cried, extremely happy for him, though sad she would have to be separated from him for what she presumed would be several months, if not longer.

She thought of the drawings and sketches she had made of the plants around the grounds of the house, some of which had become diagrams. A few were framed on the fireplace in that very room, but most of her work was up in her own rooms, and none, as far as she knew, had been presented to her father’s colleagues. All the same, a strange longing rose in Jane’s chest, a quiet, improbable hope that perhaps she could help, that although she would never be able to be a scientist as her father was, perhaps she could still be of some assistance.

He noticed her slightly dampened mood, and dragged himself away from his excitable dreams of Africa to come back down to earth for a moment, to comfort his daughter.

“What is it, darling?”

Jane looked up at him hopefully, wondering how to frame the question so as not to appear too desperate. If it was not possible, if there was no way the other scientists would accept her on the ship, then of course she would be fine at home, it would not be a problem, but still… oh how she wanted to go.

“Daddy,” she began. “I know I am not as well-versed in scientific language as those of your colleagues that you will be bringing along, and I know I have little practical experience of dealing with nature outside the gardens here, but, well, I was just wondering… Daddy, could I come with you? Please?”

Her father seemed shocked. She wondered for a moment whether she’d said the wrong thing, before his gentle voice cut through her frantic thoughts:

“Why, of course, Jane, darling. Did you think I would leave you behind?”

She was filled with a sudden rush of utter ecstasy, and gave into a moment of childish behaviour to jump to her feet and run around the desk to hug her father. He reciprocated jovially, then held her at arm’s length to deliver the final, essential bit of news.

“We leave port in a month. I will write to your aunts, and inform your tutors. Now, go and pack!”


	3. Chapter 3

The journey to Africa was longer and rougher than Jane had expected, but she took it in her stride. She had always felt at home in nature, and as it turned out the sea was no different. Whilst a couple of her father’s scientific assistants hid themselves away below decks, she sat and watched the waves for hours, sketching seagulls and fish and the occasional marine mammal that broke the surface to breathe. She began to feel at home in this life, and let her mind wander to imagine what it would be like to live as a pirate – loose trousers and hair in a headscarf, scurrying up the rigging and hanging recklessly out over the crashing ocean below. It was a life she would never easily find herself in, and yet one that she was certain she would enjoy.

As their destination neared, Jane’s father began to focus her attention to the plan of action he had created for the team’s scientific study of the jungle and its animal inhabitants. His interest in botany was the overwhelming focus of Jane’s contribution, as she would be in charge of producing accurate and detailed diagrams and sketches of the plants they found on the expedition. But she was also given access to the rest of the team’s schedules, and found her interest piqued by an entirely different group of organisms; apes.

“Yes, we believe there are relatively large numbers of gorillas living in the jungle we will be working in,” Jane’s father explained. “They’re rather aggressive beasts, so I’m told, so we must remember to be calm around them. No loud noises or getting too close. We wouldn’t want anything to happen.”

“But would I be able to see them, Daddy?”

Jane’s father sighed. He wanted to encourage his daughter’s curiosity, wanted to give her as much opportunity to fulfil her interests in a scientific realm of study before he was gone and could no longer help her, but he also wanted to keep her safe. He had heard things about these animals – extreme violence, a strength unparalleled to any human, even that they ate the men they killed – and even if he did not believe all of the stories, he wasn’t sure he wanted to bet Jane’s life on it.

“We’ll see,” he decided, and Jane nodded her understanding. But she didn’t stop devouring all the information she could about these extraordinary primates.

***

The shout that signalled land went up in the morning, before lunch. The sailors immediately set about preparing the ship and its boats, and the array of scientists gathered together their belongings and notes into cases, ready to be loaded onto shore. By the time the ship dropped anchor, the coast was in plain view, and everyone was ready.

Jane was buzzing with excitement. She tried to restrain herself, to remember what her tutors and aunts always said about ‘ladylike composure’, but couldn’t resist offering her father a wide grin every time he looked in her direction, which he always returned gleefully.

Only once did another scientist catch her doing it – a young man named James, who always seemed to wear a disapproving look on his face. She did wonder whether his scowl was just in general, or directed specifically at her, or perhaps used to cover up the briefest of involuntary smiles. She was so exhilarated with anticipation, she decided she didn’t much mind, and forgot about it.

The day was a long one. It took time for the boats to get to shore and be unloaded, it took time for the camp to be set up and the cases unpacked, it took time to make sure that everything vital was there with them, and not left behind on the ship. By the evening, however, everything was prepared, and the scientific squadron had made itself a small haven on the edge of an unknown African jungle.

The first night in a new bed always feels strange. The first night on the boat had felt odd, mainly because of the rocking sensation, and now Jane almost felt uncomfortable that the ground was so still and unmoving. But this first night was different – she wasn’t just in a new bed, she wasn’t just in transit; she was here. She was spending her first night sleeping in a foreign jungle, on an entirely different continent, let alone country. There was so much of nature here that had yet to be explored, and this was the bright thought that Jane fell asleep to, excited to see what the new day had in store.

***

That night, Tarzan found herself staring up at the stars before she fell asleep. She always found them fascinating, but the gorillas never had much to say about them – they were ‘stars’, and that was it. She often liked to make up stories around them, drawing pictures in the air and imagining huge gorillas running around in the sky, swinging from trees and having fun.

Tonight, though, her mind couldn’t focus. She didn’t bother to remember her stories, or make up new ones, instead just staring up at the strange lights and wondering what caused them.

They were an interesting comfort to her, these stars, something that she and she alone of her family cared about, and they were almost always there for her at night, even after the others had fallen asleep – it was just Tarzan and the world, her alone and at home in nature, wondering and imagining and thinking, or just looking, always admiring.

She did not know that there was another young girl like her in the jungle now, also sleeping under the stars tonight, also wondering what the next day would offer.

***

The first week of the expedition passed in a rushed bustle of activity. Jane hardly had time to think, there was so much going on. There were measurements to be taken, samples to be tested, plants and insects to be analysed, and a whole host of other things to be done.

Jane’s father let her watch and showed her how all the different experiments worked. She listened carefully to the assistants’ explanations and ignored their often patronising tones, nodding politely whenever they asked if she knew what a certain word meant. Eventually, her father asked Jane if she would like to try one.

Her eager nods were met by frowns from several of the nearby scientists, but neither father nor daughter were perturbed. After an initial hesitation and false-start, she had the process down perfectly, and her father watched her with pride etched into his face as she carefully completed the measurements an assistant had been working on before.

In between all these new things she was learning, Jane was also sketching. Every plant in the immediate vicinity of the camp was catalogued, every flower dissected and diagrams drawn of the parts and their assumed functions, every leaf drawn and coloured and measured to form a precise two-dimensional illustration of it. It was hard work, but not at all resented by Jane – she loved sketching, and found the new specimens just as intriguing as her father did. But the animals, particularly the gorillas, were still on her mind.

***

About seven or eight days into the expedition, the first trek was planned. Jane volunteered to go, but her father’s reservations about the murderous animals that could potentially be found here put him off agreeing. Instead, the party was divided in half; one group would leave camp for a night or two, exploring deeper into the jungle in search of yet more new species, and the other section of the scientists, including Jane and her father, would remain behind to continue their experiments and further analysis of the surrounding flora and fauna.

Fewer scientists meant more autonomy. Jane was elated to find herself being able to take a more active role in the hands-on scientific work, and she learnt quickly. Life here, amongst the nature she had always enjoyed, was better for Jane – more fun, more free, more personal. It showed on her face – she was always smiling, even when concentrating hard, and she appeared much more bubbly and lively than she ever had in a traditional English drawing room. Her father noticed, and smiled happily to himself.

On the second night the trekking group were away, the professor and his daughter were talking around the fire, the rest of the team having already retired to read or sleep. They spoke of the stars, bright and clear in the air above them, and of all the things they had discovered since they had been there.

During a pause in the conversation, Jane’s father stared into the fire, and spoke of her mother.

“You look like her, you know.”

Jane looked up with a start, immediately knowing who he was referring to.

“Really?”

“Yes, of course. The way you smile when you do your experiments, how you react whenever we find out something new about a plant we’re looking at – you look just like she did when she was working in the laboratory.”

Somehow, Jane had never come across this information before. Her father had always spoken of his wife with regards to her smile, her laugh, her playing with Jane, her ability to vocalise her thoughts and speak out about rights and wrongs, her love of reading. He had never mentioned the lab before.

“She used to work… with you?”

Jane’s father’s gaze shifted from the fire to his daughter’s face.

“Why, of course. It was before you were born, so you wouldn’t remember, but she used to join me at work all the time. Most everyone else looked down on it, of course, it wasn’t proper, but we were married, and there wasn’t much they could really do. She was very talented, your mother. Though she preferred books to science, in the end.”

Jane mulled over this information. She tried to add the new details to the mental image she already had, pieced together from stories and memories and the fragments of insight found in the books she had left her. After a moment, she spoke again.

“Tell me about her.”

It was a story she had heard hundreds of times, in a hundred different situations, but it felt different now – now she heard of her mother talking about freedom with the context of a scientific mind attached to those arguments; now she heard about games the three of them used to play, knowing that she and her mother had even more in common than she originally thought; now the image of her mother metamorphosed under the stars shining down on Africa, and Jane felt her father’s words bring her to the jungle with them, and temporarily make her live and breathe, sat with them by the fire, hidden on the opposite side of the flames.

***

Just after lunch the next afternoon, the trekking group returned.

“There were several new examples of foliage that we made notes on that appear only to be found deeper into the jungle, not so close to the sea,” the assistant called James announced. “We also caught glimpses of unknown animal and bird life higher up in the canopy. And we found nests.”

“Nests? What sort of nests?”

“Big ones, professor. Huge, made of leaves and arranged on the ground.”

“On the ground?” Jane’s father looked excited.

“Yes, sir,” another scientist said. “By the looks of them, and from the surrounding evidence, it appears they weren’t made by birds at all – they look like gorilla nests.”

Jane almost squeaked with excitement.


End file.
